After Senate clash, Kavanaugh nomination an occasion for prayer

September 28, 2018

5 Min Read

Faith leaders hold an interfaith vigil before the Senate Judiciary Committee's vote on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 28, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Megan Simons/Alliance for Justice

(RNS) — In the last hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee held its vote to send Brett Kavanaugh’s U.S. Supreme Court nomination to the full Senate, the Rev. Susan Hayward fiddled with her cell phone as she headed to the office of Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican seen as a potential swing vote against Kavanaugh.

Hayward, a United Church of Christ pastor in Washington, D.C., has friends in Maine, several of whom oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination. Her friends weren’t able to get through to Collins’ office, but Hayward planned to hold up her phone when she arrived at the senator’s office, so her friends could explain their concerns to the staffers there via video chat.

Hayward said a number of the clergy who have been protesting Kavanaugh’s nomination are survivors of sexual violence, including herself.

“This process has been degrading to justice, to truth, to a God of justice, to women generally and to abuse survivors of all genders,” she said.

Across the Hart building’s atrium, the Rev. Katie Romano Griffin held up a sign that read “Feeling triggered? I am here to support you!!”

The Rev. Katie Romano Griffin offers support following an interfaith vigil before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on Brett Kavanaugh on Sept. 28, 2018, in Washington, D.C. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins

The Unitarian Universalist minister said several people had already come up to her during and after the protests to talk about their experiences with abuse.

“As much as I’ve been engaged in other aspects of this work today — in prayer, in witness — this is the core of my ministry,” she said. “There are many people who have been struggling who are in tears, remembering things from 40, 50, 60 years ago … and it’s very live for them. Part of that human process that is often missing is this pastoral piece.”

At a demonstration in the Hart building Friday morning, a coalition of more than 20 faith leaders from across the religious spectrum stood outside the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting as lawmakers arrived for the vote. Afterward, as they gathered before a crowd in the building’s atrium, the gaggle, assembled by the National Council of Jewish Women and other faith groups, prayed for victims of sexual assault.

“I am here as a pastor and as a woman. I know what it feels like to feel helpless and alone and not believed,” said the Rev. Amber Henry Neuroth, United Church of Christ pastor in Alexandria, Va. “I have cried with many women who have felt the same. And I know in my heart that that is not God’s truth.”

She added: “If you are one of those women, God loves you, we all believe you, and we will stand with you until this injustice is overturned.”

Beyond the Beltway, too, this week’s hearings seemed to have prompted women to volunteer their own experiences with unwanted sexual advances.

At a liberal church in a residential neighborhood of Greensboro, N.C., a prayer service was called to grieve the culture of violence directed at women and to support those voices often silenced or belittled.

Boxes of tissues beckoned as a group of eight women including the pastor entered the chapel at Congregational United Church of Christ and took their seats in a semicircle.

“We pause this day to recognize there are many among us here who have been wounded by violence, exploitation, coercion and manipulation,” said the Rev. Julie Peeples, the church pastor, reading from a printed liturgy.

“There are many among us who are suffering and grieving,” the group responded.

One woman spoke of being raped as a teen by a friend of her parents — a story she has previously shared only with her husband.

“I’m really, really angry,” she said, asking that her name not be used. “I’m trying to do quiet reflection, but it’s all boiling up.”

Another recalled her sister’s molestation at the hands of a Sunday school teacher years ago and the church’s refusal to confront the perpetrator.

The altar in the chapel at Congregational United Church of Christ in Greensboro, N.C. Members were invited to light candles before the service Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

An altar with candles flickering stood at the end of the room in front of a quilted illustration of a white dove.

During the final liturgy, the women prayed the refrain: “Pour out your healing and hope.”

“For the future of my granddaughters,” said one.

“For the voiceless,” said another.

And finally, “For Dr. Ford’s day-after.”

If the tone of outrage was relatively muted among conservative Christian commentators — Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the influential First Baptist Church of Dallas, told Lou Hobbs on Fox News on Thursday evening that he had “sympathy for Dr. Ford and the pain she’s obviously in” — both sides were aware of the stakes for their faith communities.

“We all know that (the Democrats’) No. 1 objection to Judge Kavanaugh is that he might restrict in some way the murder of 700,000 females every year in the womb through abortion,” said Jeffress.

In Washington on Friday, one of the few prominent activists still making herself available to reporters was Linda Sarsour, an organizer of last year’s Women’s March and a Muslim American activist.

“My faith as a Muslim teaches me that I have to be on the side of the oppressed, and a Brett Kavanaugh nomination is, in fact, an affront to the most marginalized and oppressed people in this country: black people, immigrants and refugees, women, LGBTQ communities,” she said.

“So I’m here because I know the disaster that will be rained on our people if there is a conservative majority for the next four decades.”

Yonat Shimron

85 Comments

If Kavanaugh was innocent of Dr. Ford’s charge, he would have been inviting Dr. Ford and her husband to dinner for the purpose of convincing her that she really, really was mistaken as to who assaulted her. This is not a criminal trial. He is at liberty to do all the witness tampering he wants to do and an honest innocent person would be giving that a shot in this circumstance. If the allegation is false altogether, such efforts would also be the best way to convince the rest of us that the allegations are false. So, what approach did we get? Confrontation, confrontation, confrontation. Doesn’t smell right.

LINDA SARSOUR: “Disaster that will be rained on our [Muslim] people if there is a conservative majority for the next four decades.”

JONATHAN LAURENCE: “Rather than defending liberal order, left parties have become so worried about losing votes that they feel compelled to cater to populist temptations about Islam and immigration more generally. Even British Labour leader Ed Miliband recently returned to the old saw that ‘migrant workers’ are an inherent threat: ‘It’s not prejudiced when people worry about immigration. It’s understandable. And we were wrong in the past when we dismissed people’s concerns.'”

CARRIE SHEFFIELD: “I wish many Muslims and liberals would be so objective when looking at the brutally misogynistic behavior associated with some Muslims’ interpretations of sharia and reject the knee-jerk reaction that paints anyone who questions the modern Muslim world as Islamophobic. The refusal to do so is chilling those of us who unequivocally believe in women’s rights, who believe in freedom of expression, who believe in rationality and critical thinking. … It boggles the mind how Western liberals can hyperventilate about a harmless Christmas tree or the phrase ‘In God We Trust’ even as Muslim countries are explicitly using sharia to defend their misogyny.”

I’m disappointed in not seeing responses to this article that reflect religious or spiritual values. Partisan labeling and blaming are the antithesis of those values and are common on Facebook and Twitter. We might try to rise above that level of discourse in our reflections on Religious news.

Free Will and Future are inherent to all the thinking beings in the Universe. This being the case, it is not possible to alter life with prayers. Statistically, your request might come true but it is simply the result of the variability/randomness of Nature..

So put down your rosaries and prayer beads and stop worshiping/revering cows or bowing to Mecca five times a day. Instead work hard at your job, take care of aging parents, volunteer at a soup kitchen, donate to charities and the poor and continue to follow the proper rules of your religion or any good rules of living as gracious and good human beings. (and report underage drinking and illegal drug use wherever you find it)

Oh, there’s plenty of religion-related, values-related responses to be had. Here’s one.
Notice the top photograph of this RNS article. All those liberal anti-Kavanaugh clergy with their colorful outfits, a-preaching and a-praying. Practicing their First Amendment religious freedoms to the hilt, just like the conservative clergy does.

It’s an excellent photo, because it really shows what the Democrat political assassination of Kavanaugh is about. Is it about Roe (abortion-on-demand)? Nope. Is it about Obergefell (legalized gay marriage)? Nope. Kavanaugh is not a big firebrand. Kavanaugh was nominated because his record is more centrist and non-threatening.

But … Kavanaugh seems likely to support constitutional Religious and Speech Freedoms. Yes, the constitutional freedoms of the liberal clergy in the RNS photo. But maybe also the same freedoms of a Hobby Lobby, a Baronelle Stutzmann, a Jack Phillips, a Janet Boynes. A crucial aspect of today’s culture war. That’s why Goliath & Co. wanna destroy Kavanaugh.

I described one of the means by which Brett Kavanaugh could have derailed the accusation against him if, as you believe, it is false. He could have come out of this looking like a peach and smelling like a rose. But he did not choose that course. Whether he did not choose it because he could not choose it due to being guilty as charged, or whether he thinks the image of the Supreme Court itself would be better enhanced with him on it in full confrontational mode against more than half the people in the country, I don’t know. I doubt that John Roberts, even as a conservative, is cheering for the idea of living with “Kav”, as you call him, as a colleague on the so-called Roberts Court.

“Instead work hard at your job, take care of aging parents, volunteer at a soup kitchen, donate to charities and the poor and continue to follow the proper rules of your religion or any good rules of living as gracious and good human beings.”

Thanks for that. We really do not, as a country, talk enough about how to be secular good guys. You opened the door with “Instead”. Instead WHAT? Always a good question. There should be dozens or hundreds of answers to that. We are missing them these days, no?

No one helps the poor more than the Catholic Church. Here’s the evidence

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Stalin famously said of the Church, “The Pope! How many divisions has he?” Less well known is Churchill’s response that Stalin “might have mentioned a number of legions not always visible on parade”. Indeed, the reach and influence of the Church are not easily described by statistics alone, yet the raw statistics are staggering enough.

The Church operates more than 140,000 schools, 10,000 orphanages, 5,000 hospitals and some 16,000 other health clinics. Caritas, the umbrella organisation for Catholic aid agencies, estimates that spending by its affiliates totals between £2 billion and £4 billion, making it one of the biggest aid agencies in the world.

Even these numbers only tell half the tale. Caritas does not include development spending by a host of religious orders and other Catholic charities, while most of the 200,000 Catholic parishes around the world operate their own small-scale charitable projects which are never picked up in official figures. Establishing like-for-like comparisons is hard, but there can be little doubt that in pretty much every field of social action, from education to health to social care, the Church is the largest and most significant non-state organisation in the world.

To deep a concept for you to comprehend, that accusing another without evidence, is not a good idea?

In some societies, accusing anther without proof, means a four fold restitution or worse. Considering the cost of this case so far, inviting the Kavanaugh family for Mac & cheese, would be a cheap way out.

Do you find it the least bit odd that Dr. Ford asked for a law-enforcement investigation, by an FBI currently in the hands of Trumpism, of all things? Do you find it odd that Brett Kavanaugh didn’t, except at the hearing to awkwardly concede that he would support “whatever” the (Republican-controlled) Judiciary Committee wanted to do?

As for the Kavanaugh family, I have a feeling that Mrs. Kavanaugh either did not know the personal history of the person she married—–or—-she is actually driven by a partisanship exceeding even his. Either way, the family aspects at the Kavanaugh house have nothing at all to do with who should or should not be sitting on the Supreme Court. Bill Cosby has a current wife too, but Bill either did or did not criminally mistreat a parade of women.

With Kavanaugh now, the main issue is perjury by a potential SC Justice. I personally think we have some of that about several matters including the main allegation, but, I have no direct knowledge and will simply watch this all play out——like everyone else

It boggles the mind how Western liberals can hyperventilate about a harmless Christmas tree or the phrase ‘In God We Trust’ even as Muslim countries are explicitly using sharia to defend their misogyny.”

‘It boggles the mind how Western conservative Christians can hyperventilate about a harmless Christmas holiday greeting or the phrase ‘In God We Trust’ even as Muslim countries are explicitly using sharia to defend their misogyny.”

So, is God going to listen to the prayers of the people that think the kavagnaw is a swell idea, or god is going to listen to the prayers Of the people that don’t think that Kavagnaw is a good idea. Or maybe he will listen to the prayers of the people that Trump was sent by God, unless of course, the allegations about Cavanagh are true, andhe is a sexual assaulter, a possible alcoholic, or liar. In which case, god’s didn’t send him, either, unless God likes people like king David.

the saddest thing about this, and the me too declarations……with all of the fuss and the hoopla, women reporting rape will be taken less seriously. It has been politicized as a means of attacking an opponent – something those accused used as an excuse for so many years, well, oddly enough, that seems to be what it is used for now – rather than to protect a person from one of the worst things to happen to them – the declaration will be taken less seriously because of the political nature attributed to it – to the harm of those it has really happened to. Shows the ugliness of North America.

There is sharp conflict among the Judicial Committee, the Senate, and the American public. Sexual abuse, abuse of power, and a sharply divided country is troubling. There is much need for prayer among Christians and the public proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In John 8:1-11, Jesus confronted a somewhat similar social problem. Sins committed, judgment passed, submission to punishment, forgiveness of sins, repentance and lifestyle change because of Jesus. My prayers are for victims and perpetrators alike, and the ministers who reach out to them with the Gospel of Jesus, prayer, and support and assistance. As problems come my way, I, also, reach out in the power of Jesus Christ.

Aha, by “small rats”, you must mean Rattus osgoodi a.k.a. Osgood’s Vietnamese rats, which are 5 to 7 inches long. Otherwise the largest of them all, the Bosavi woolly rats, whose scientific name of species, Rattus something, has yet to be given, would’ve been the size of a cat – 32.2 inches. They’re my Alma Mater’s mascot, actually, for being “Neither Left Nor Right Wing, But Chicken Wing Neither”. Which, as such, can be quite annoying at times to those “small rats [Kasa]gnawing at the country.” But fun for them as well at other times. Depending on the journalistic integrity of the Religion News Service coverage of current events.

The accusations against Judge Kavanaugh need to be handed over to the FBI to investigate.
* One of his accusers has given testimony to the Senate.
* Another accuser has agreed to testify before the Senate.
Let’s see what the FBI makes of the testimony about this man.

1. Feinstein got a letter from a constituent alleging sexual harassment by Judge Brett Kavanaugh during his high school years. She sat on it for 60 days, only to bring it up after hearings were concluded, obviously for some political bang, following the news that Kavanaugh would likely be confirmed without incident.

2. Asked about it at the time, Feinstein said she had questions about whether it was truthful. That was her argument and stayed her argument, until Ford became politically useful.

3. Then Feinstein, or her staff, leaked the letter to the press, following Feinstein’s promises of confidentiality to the writer, outing her and forcing her to come forward as a named witness whether she liked it or not. That backed the witness, Christine Blasey Ford into a corner, forcing her to come forward with her allegations in testimony under oath, which, given the perjury trap it was for her, were quite vague. Ford herself said she believed she was betrayed and outed by someone on Feinstein’s staff.

4. That became obvious when Feinstein was instrumental in getting Ford a left-wing lawyer to do media grandstanding.

5. Feinstein was confronted about her political opportunism by Ted Cruz, and tried to brush the whole thing off, begging his question about how the letter was leaked by saying reporters were the problem, not leakage. Pressed by another senator, she said she asked their staff and they said “no”. Sneaky leakers would never lie, now, would they?

6. In a moment of perfect irony, when questioned on this matter, the woman who claims to have been traumatized for a lifetime by having a hand clamped over her mouth was cut off from speaking by one of her handlers who suddenly clamped her hand over the microphone.

The easy solution, the “pew sitters” will simply send their kids to public schools or private schools not associated with religion. Orphanages, hospitals and health clinics will simply be absorbed by taxes and contributions to non-profit organizations not associated with religion.

Shimron is right, and so was Kavanaugh’s daughter—this is a chance for Kavanaugh, his wife and daughters, and all those that respect and love them to act as true Christians: “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

One of the reasonable explanations for this is an understanding, by anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, that both Senator Feinstein and Dr. Ford would have preferred other kinds of testimony or examinations in the September hearings to prevent Brett Kavanaugh from being seated on the Supreme Court. One really only needs to read some of the writings of Mark Judge to “get it” why this man is not only not the “best” nominee who could be found, but actually a sick joke on the nation. A veteran of “fast times at Catholic High”, followed by fast times at elite university, followed by a career of extreme partisanship? And that is a wise and impartial judge? The best of the best? Dang, J-Bob. It’s a crock.

Well, that’s why I complimented your effort, especially your second paragraph. To you personally, since I have read a lot of your comments and since I am a “freedom from religion” guy, I have a question. You and I both know that secularism was “winning” the big arguments in the mid twentieth century, and now various hijacks of religion are “winning” politics for the upper crust in Russia, America, and most anywhere else going hard right. The church people are being hoodooed into supporting a widening of the wealth divide and a suppression of human rights. Here is the question. Does secularism win again by insisting that the religions are myths and junk? Or does secularism have to depend on votes from at least SOME religiously-tended people? If so, how do you (we) get those votes back?

You are leaving out the fact that in the US alone Catholic Charities gets at least two the three billion in government funding.

“A 2014 study conducted by Catholic Charities USA found that total income for their 177 member agencies was about $4.5 billion, with about $2.8 billion coming from government sources. This would include federal, state and local government support.

The total number of dollars flowing from Washington to local Catholic Charities agencies may be far greater, as money is often given to states that then disburse grants and contracts to Catholic Charities.

Catholic Charities of Chicago, for example, had a total budget of $180 million in 2016, with $155 million coming from government sources. Of that, about $105 million came from the state of Illinois, though the state gets a portion of that funding from the federal government before passing it on to Catholic Charities. It is known as “federal pass through money.”

Of course I’ve read a HS yearbook. I was in HS like everybody else—–public and grateful that it was. Smaller town and grateful for that too. Class of 1969. What some people called “wild times”. Enough so that I can identify Kav as a colossal jerk at a mile and a half. You can too.

Is Bob trying to deny that a large chunk of the church’s hierarchy have not covered up the clergy sexual abuse of minors for a long time? Bob likes to hurl the “anti-Catholic” smear at those who disagree with him.

That’s like saying that Catholic’s who disagree with Vatican policy are anti-Catholic. As is Bob thinks that the 2/3 of Irish voters why voted for abortion rights on May 25 are anti-Catholic. Bob must feel all alone in his little bunker.

No, that’s like saying people who concoct cr-p about the effects of overpopulation, citing unimplemented Federal “studies”, misstating what the position of the Catholic Church is on abuse, on abortion, and wrapping himself in a vote in another country by individuals who have long since ceased to be actual Catholics is the sort of thing we just saw in the Senate.

I state you’re an anti-Catholic because you are.

Raised Catholic, you got into with the powers-that-be for personal reasons, are a Unitarian, and have kept up a decades long rant against your former church.

Re: “All those liberal anti-Kavanaugh clergy with their colorful outfits…. Practicing their First Amendment religious freedoms to the hilt…. But … Kavanaugh seems likely to support constitutional Religious and Speech Freedoms…. But maybe also the same freedoms of a Hobby Lobby….”

Bzzzzzt! Apples and oranges. Those “liberal” clergy aren’t using their “religious freedoms” as a rationale to coerce other people to live according to their metaphysics, the way Hobby Lobby does. I mean, maybe they do support things like gay marriage, but I don’t know any who’ve tried to force anyone to marry another person of the same sex against his/her will.

Bob totally ignores what scientists have been saying for decades about overpopulation and its effects and causes. He refuses to accept the well documented obvious that top church officials have tolerated and covered up clergy sexual abuse for ages. And he smears the majority of Irish Catholics who disagree with the Vatican on contraception and abortion. Plus, he seems unaware of the great diversity of opinion by Catholics worldwide. Bob, just loves to sit in front of his computer in his bathrobe and annoy people.

The Apostles’ Creed 2018 (updated by yours truly based on the studies of NT historians and theologians of the past 200 years)

Should I believe in a god whose existence cannot be proven
and said god if he/she/it exists resides in an unproven,
human-created, spirit state of bliss called heaven?????

I believe there was a 1st century CE, Jewish, simple,
preacher-man who was conceived by a Jewish carpenter
named Joseph living in Nazareth and born of a young Jewish
girl named Mary. (Some say he was a mamzer.)

Jesus was summarily crucified for being a temple rabble-rouser by
the Roman troops in Jerusalem serving under Pontius Pilate,

He was buried in an unmarked grave and still lies
a-mouldering in the ground somewhere outside of
Jerusalem.

Said Jesus’ story was embellished and “mythicized” by
many semi-fiction writers. A bodily resurrection and
ascension stories were promulgated to compete with the
Caesar myths. Said stories were so popular that they
grew into a religion known today as Catholicism/Christianity
and featuring dark-age, daily wine to blood and bread to body rituals
called the eucharistic sacrifice of the non-atoning Jesus.

“Prayers generally do not work” for you, but THE Christ Jesus of the gospels, epistles and revelation is fine with that. For “In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus [would go] away to a secluded place, and [be] praying there.” Other times He’d “le[ave] for the mountain to pray. … But Jesus Himself would oftentimes slip away to the wilderness and pray.”